Family of 5, school children, students among 30 killed in Kogi petrol tanker explosion
About 30 persons, including school children, died yesterday in a petrol tanker explosion that also razed several cars and other properties around Felele area of Lokoja, the Kogi State capital.
Among the casualties were five students of Kogi State Polytechnic, three primary school children who were being taken to school by their father and a woman with her two kids.
Although eyewitness accounts put the casualty figure at 30, the Federal Road Road Safety Commission, FRSC, said 23 persons died in the explosion.
Several persons who also sustained injuries in the explosion are receiving treatment in different hospitals in the city.
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday said the death of 23 people confirmed by the FRSC represented another disturbing and saddening incident in the litany of tragedies that have befallen our country.”
Reacting to the explosion, President Buhari said “I am seriously worried about the frequency of these unfortunate and large scale tragedies in the country which cause needless deaths.”
The President in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu said, “these frequent incidents that result in loss of lives and property are a national scandal caused by our indifference to safety standards.”
He said: “Many accidents are preventable if proper proactive and precautionary measures are put in place or properly observed as routine policies.”
Vanguard gathered that the tanker fully loaded with premium motor spirit, PMS, which belongs to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, suffered brake around around 8:30am and rammed into five cars, two motorbikes and three tricycles, popularly known as Keke NAPEP, killing all the occupants.
Also killed in the inferno was a businessman, identified as Pastor Samson, his wife and three children, who until his death was a member of Baptist Church, Felele.
